Heretofore known is a liquid-crystal display device in which light made to exit from a backlight is linearly polarized by a combination of a cholesteric liquid-crystal layer and a quarter-wave plate so that the linearly polarized light is supplied to an absorption type polarizer with little absorption loss or the like to attain improvement of luminance to make it possible to achieve reduction in thickness of the liquid-crystal display device and increase in size thereof advantageously. In such a device, generally, the axial relation between the plane of polarization of light linearly polarized by the cholesteric liquid-crystal layer or the like and the axis of polarization of the absorption type polarizer is adjusted so that good viewing characteristic can be obtained in a frontal (perpendicular) direction which forms a main viewing point. The plane of polarization of the linearly polarized light and the axis of polarization of the absorption type polarizer are usually arranged at a crossing angle of about 45 degrees.
Hence, the optical axis was displaced in an obliquely viewing direction shifted from the frontal direction. There was a problem that display was colored on the basis of the displacement of the optical axis. Although there might be proposed a system in which the coloring problem is suppressed by controlling retardation in a direction of the thickness of the display device or by controlling the wavelength range by used of the cholesteric liquid-crystal layer, it was difficult to suppress coloring evenly in all obliquely viewing azimuths and there was a disadvantage that coloring was apt to remain particularly in the direction of the axis of the polarizer.
An object of the present invention is to provide a polarizing member which can suppress coloring evenly in all obliquely viewing azimuths while achieving good viewing characteristic in a frontal direction in a liquid-crystal display device improved in luminance by use of a cholesteric liquid-crystal layer.